Another Blow to Historical Memory (my translation)
The Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras (COFADEH) finds itself with a historic need to communicate to the people of Honduras, international human rights organizations, the international community and fundamentally to Honduran artists and foreigners who care about art, culture and memory and who accompanied us in the design, elaboration and inauguration of the monument erected in honor of the fallen of the decade of the eighties that although the past and present murderers have tried to erase history, we remember everything.

It is recognized around the world that August 30 is the International Day of the Disappeared. We in COFADEH commemorate this date as the National Day of the Disappeared. And when COFADEH celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, we dedicated the celebration to the search for truth and justice, educating through memory.

In the same vein we declare this year "year against impunity," and as such we decided to mark the path of memory by placing the first signpost in a place where the past was located in a clandestine cemetery where we found the remains of 5 human beings. For COFADEH this place is now called Return to Memory, located 5 kilometers before the city of Danlí, in the department of El Paraíso.

This symbol of memory suffered its first attack a week after its inauguration, receiving 13 bullets from a high caliber weapon that did not manage to knock it down, but did demonstrate the aggression, intolerance and disdain toward those of us who work toward the idea of never again. Fifteen days later there was another attack and the monument was shot at with another 7 bullets.

Today, 50 days after its installation, the perpetrators of this act disappeared the monument, believing that by doing so they would erase history, when it is already part of the collective memory of the Honduran people.

For COFADEH these actions mean that the structures of terror of the past continue to act in the present. It is not the first time that an attack like this occurs.

In 2009 in middle of the barbarity that the people faced with the political-military coup d'état, clandestine groups that act on the margin of the law destroyed a plaque that had been installed in the bridge named "the four cardinal points" (located next to the National Stadium) in compliance with a sentence handed down by the Inter-American Court for Human Rights (IACHR) in memory of the youths Marco Antonio Servellón García (16 years old), Rony Alexis Betancourt Hernández (17), Diómedes Obed García (18) y Orlando Alvarez Ríos (32) who were victims of illegal detention, kidnapping, disappearance and subsequent murder at the hands of agents of the Honduran state.

The youths were captured, tortured and murdered by Honduran police in 1995 during a police operation in Tegucigalpa after a soccer match, in what came to be known as the case of the four cardinal points. The State of Honduras was sanctioned for the case by the Inter-American Court for Human Rights.

Today we wish to express the statement that we installed on a wooden sign near the monument to memory that was disappeared, and which says: "Everything is contained within memory, weapon of life and history that is deadly to nations who silence it and do not let it fly freely like the wind."

For the acts and their perpetrators
We will neither forget nor forgive!